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Take a Letter

The integration with Office allows QuickBooks to do some flashy tricks, including generating letters based on financial information. If, for example, you'd like to send debt collection letters to customers whose bills are 30 to 60 days past due, the program will present you with a list of qualifying delinquents. You can edit the list before the program launches Word and performs a mail merge to generate the letters.

You can choose from three prewritten collection letters (friendly, formal, or harsh) or write your own. QuickBooks Pro 99 one-ups the competition by enabling you to produce other types of letters as well--thank-yous for bill payments received, bounced check notifications, contract transmissions, and so on. Or you can create your own templates for mailings to customers, suppliers, or employees.

Integration with Excel lets you turn a QuickBooks report, including formulas, into a new worksheet--or add it to an existing one--with a single mouse click. This is useful if you want to manipulate data in ways QuickBooks can't.

Users who bill by the hour will appreciate the convenience of the new, built-in Stopwatch, which enables you to track time spent on a job by clicking at the start of that job and again at the end. Previously, you had to import this data from a separate QuickBooks Pro Timer application. (The Timer still comes with the program, incidentally, and it remains useful for employees who don't have QuickBooks on their desktops but who need to generate time sheets.)

Other improvements apply to the $119 basic edition of the package, QuickBooks 99, as well as to the $219 Pro version ($599 for a five-user pack). You can now fill out deposit slips from your keyboard--but you have to order blank slips, with your account information preprinted on them in special ink, from Intuit at a pricey $35 to $55 per 250-slip package.

More useful from the standpoint of business accounting: QuickBooks now permits you to track cash back on deposits and attach purchase orders to customer accounts and jobs.

Finally, though QuickBooks 6.0 too is supposed to be Y2K ready, the 99 editions go a step farther by expressing all years in four digits rather than two.

Satisfied Peachtree and Bestware users will find no compelling reason to switch, but QuickBooks Pro 99 should help keep existing customers loyal--especially those with older versions who were thinking of upgrading anyway. But if you already use QuickBooks Pro 6.0, upgrade only if you need the Office integration and other new business management features.

At least recent upgraders get a bit of a break on rebates: QuickBooks Pro 6.0 owners can recoup $90 ($160 for a five-pack), compared to $70 (and $100 for a five-pack) for owners of earlier versions.

Note: The above paragraph has been changed to correct an editing error. --Editors